The wise sage and practical spiritual leader of the
modern world, Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, started life as a doctor of the
body. What is more significant, even at the very outset of his career as a
physician and surgeon, Sri Swami Sivananda (then Dr. Kuppuswamy) revealed it as
his mission that he should broadcast the correct knowledge of the body and its
functions, and of health and hygiene, with an insistence upon prevention as
better than cure.

As the reader is aware, Sri Swamiji, even after
renouncing his lucrative medical practice, and all worldly pleasures and
ambitions, and even while being engaged in intense spiritual practices, took an
extraordinary pleasure in serving the sick and in educating the people in the
principles of Health and Hygiene.

This volume, thus, is not only an authoritative text
on Health and Hygiene from the pen of one who has been deeply interested in
these aspects of life, but also the expression of the sage’s supreme concern in
the welfare of all beings—Sarvabhutahite Ratah.